The most significant obstacle to the education of Talented or Gifted children is not the lack of Talented and Gifted teachers, coordinators or programs. Those things, where they exist at all, are makeshift patches to a leaky boat. Those who care about the education of our brightest students had better attend to the boat itself and stop wasting time and energy advocating for ever more elaborate patches. There's no funding for patches, and they don't get at the root of the problem.
So what about this boat? How did it get so leaky? What can be done? Long story.
Some kids are taller than others. Some have better vision. Some weigh more than others. Some have more musical talent. Some are more mechanically inclined. Some kids are smarter than others. None of these qualities is a virtue in itself. They are just the circumstances into which various children are born.
Schools do a pretty good job of accommodating differences among children's heights, weights, visual acuity, and to a lesser degree, musical and mechanical aptitudes. But then none of these qualities is central to our mandate. The attribute that bears the most directly on the mission of schooling is intelligence, and that is where we really drop the ball. This isn't entirely the fault of schools, as our school inevitably reflect the long-standing ambivalence of our national culture toward intelligence, but we could do better.
So what's the explanation for our inability to deal with intellectual diversity? Institutionally, it's our practice of grade leveling by age, a process in which children whose birthdays are spread across a 364-day range are pronounced to be in the same 'grade' and we are told to hold them all (which winds up meaning 'hold them down' in some cases!) to the same standard. Is there any reason to believe that there is a single standard that has any relevance to children whose ages vary by 15 to 20 percent? Is there any reason to imagine that even if they were all born on the same day they should be identically prepared to pass a given test on a given day? Of course not. This practice has no basis in reason or in a knowledge of children. It is just what's cheapest and easiest for the grownups. At least it started out that way.
It seemed so simple. Put the annual crop of children in a single grade and in straight rows. Deliver the lessons. Administer the exams. Administer discipline as needed. Repeat for 12 years (kindergarten is a fairly recent invention). Issue diplomas to the 20% who made it through. Well, up until recent times. Now we are up to 60%.
The faults (and the hidden expenses) in this approach were largely invisible until the mid-20th century when, for the first time in history, over 50% of teenagers were attending high school. It's true. Even with today's headlines about dropout rates (which are horrendous) there is a larger percentage of teenagers graduating from high school today than even enrolled in high school prior to World War II. (I hope you weren't longing for those good old days in which everyone graduated from high school! Never happened.)
So what about these percentages? How do they play out today? It is likely that 90% of school aged children enter a public school at age five or six. (Kindergarten is not mandatory in Oregon, by the way). Nearly all of those students are placed in a grade-leveled classroom where they do identical work for the next several years. Along the way, about 13% of them (over 20% in some districts) are identified as having one or another sort of learning disability and are enrolled in Special Education. Another 4 or 5 percent (again, over 20% in some districts) are identified as Talented or Gifted. According to the law, students in Special Education and in Talented and Gifted programs are entitled to something more than is offered to the average student in the average classroom. Statewide, nearly one student in five is officially acknowledged as requiring something that cannot be provided in the grade leveled classroom! How cheap and efficient are these grade-leveled classrooms looking now?
But maybe you are a 'glass half full' sort of person. Isn't the ability to meet the needs of 80% of our students a pretty good argument for keeping the grade-leveled classrooms? Here's where the numbers get really bad. Nearly half of those students whose needs are supposedly being met in the 'regular' classroom are failing to graduate from high school!
The most generous interpretation that one could put to the numbers is that roughly 50% of students who enter the grade level classroom and who do not receive services through Special Education or TAG go on to graduate from high school. That's some kind of efficiency!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
K-12 Education: A Failed Public Option?
I went to a meeting downtown last night. I was invited to speak at a public forum. The group calls itself U-Choose and it convenes to discuss matters of public policy. Meeting to discuss, and not even for a grade? I already liked them before we got started. Last night's topic was education...more precisely (according to the pre-meeting publicity) how 'K-12 Education' was a 'Failed Public Option'. I was grateful to see friendly Corbett faces in the audience, because I wasn't entirely sure how the presentation would be received.
Although I was warned that it was politically unwise (and evidently bad for my career) to attend, I am not much of a politician and any group that wants to sit down and talk about education without rancor can always have as much of my time as they can tolerate.
As evidence that I am not much of a politician, I opened my segment with a challenge to the premise of the conveners (two lovely people, by the way, who went out of their way to make me feel welcome). I pointed out that just as it is unfair to declare every economic downturn a 'failure of capitalism', it is absurd to declare the ineffectiveness of some schools a 'failure of public education'. There are good schools and bad schools, public and private, and it is not the funding mechanism that determines the quality of a school. Schools should be judged, I suggested, by their results and not by the means through which they are funded. I knew that it might be bad manners to poke a stick at the banner under which we all had gathered, but I could see that my argument struck a chord with the audience and I was encouraged at not being booed off the stage after the opening statement.
I spent the next 15 or 20 minutes sharing some of the values and beliefs that make Corbett Schools unique, and the presentation was very warmly received. As soon as the conversation was steered away from politics and toward kids and teachers and schools, it was apparent that we were among caring people who want the best for their kids and are less than fully certain how to go about getting it. A number of people wanted to visit after the meeting, and the tone wasn't unlike a number of charter meetings that we have conducted.
The big question in the room regarding public schools? "Since public schools can work, what can be done to make more of them successful?" My answer? "Public schools are not especially conducive to rapid and effective change. I believe that the Charter School movement represents the best hope for replicating quality schooling in the public domain." Based on twenty years in public education, hundreds of hours of training in how to change schools, and thousands of hours logged in fruitless meetings, I believe it to be the true. It's tempting to say that I would love to be proved wrong, but I have to think that if I am wrong the proof should have emerged at least a decade ago.
Along with other members of the Corbett staff, I have spoken to a number of groups around Oregon and at national conventions regarding the challenges and successes Corbett Schools. There was one respect in which this audience was absolutely unique. Because not many of the audience members were professional educators, there was no attempt to discount Corbett's success as being merely the result of student demographics. Most of the people who spoke were openly admiring and appreciative of what we have accomplished. Rooms filled with educators rarely exhibit that kind of reaction. For whatever reason, they immediately begin firing questions regarding SES, minority populations, ESL, Special Education...anything to overcome their concern that maybe we are on to something. There was no subterfuge in this room. Just a kind of genial curiosity that there was a small public school getting the job done. The consensus? "Good for you. Thanks for your work."
It was a good night. If we were successful, maybe there are a few engaged citizens in Multnomah County who had questions and who have been reminded of the potential of public schools. Maybe they will encourage others that we ought not throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to our obligations toward the next generation.
Many thanks to Debra Mervyn and Suzanne Gallagher for their wonderful hospitality.
Although I was warned that it was politically unwise (and evidently bad for my career) to attend, I am not much of a politician and any group that wants to sit down and talk about education without rancor can always have as much of my time as they can tolerate.
As evidence that I am not much of a politician, I opened my segment with a challenge to the premise of the conveners (two lovely people, by the way, who went out of their way to make me feel welcome). I pointed out that just as it is unfair to declare every economic downturn a 'failure of capitalism', it is absurd to declare the ineffectiveness of some schools a 'failure of public education'. There are good schools and bad schools, public and private, and it is not the funding mechanism that determines the quality of a school. Schools should be judged, I suggested, by their results and not by the means through which they are funded. I knew that it might be bad manners to poke a stick at the banner under which we all had gathered, but I could see that my argument struck a chord with the audience and I was encouraged at not being booed off the stage after the opening statement.
I spent the next 15 or 20 minutes sharing some of the values and beliefs that make Corbett Schools unique, and the presentation was very warmly received. As soon as the conversation was steered away from politics and toward kids and teachers and schools, it was apparent that we were among caring people who want the best for their kids and are less than fully certain how to go about getting it. A number of people wanted to visit after the meeting, and the tone wasn't unlike a number of charter meetings that we have conducted.
The big question in the room regarding public schools? "Since public schools can work, what can be done to make more of them successful?" My answer? "Public schools are not especially conducive to rapid and effective change. I believe that the Charter School movement represents the best hope for replicating quality schooling in the public domain." Based on twenty years in public education, hundreds of hours of training in how to change schools, and thousands of hours logged in fruitless meetings, I believe it to be the true. It's tempting to say that I would love to be proved wrong, but I have to think that if I am wrong the proof should have emerged at least a decade ago.
Along with other members of the Corbett staff, I have spoken to a number of groups around Oregon and at national conventions regarding the challenges and successes Corbett Schools. There was one respect in which this audience was absolutely unique. Because not many of the audience members were professional educators, there was no attempt to discount Corbett's success as being merely the result of student demographics. Most of the people who spoke were openly admiring and appreciative of what we have accomplished. Rooms filled with educators rarely exhibit that kind of reaction. For whatever reason, they immediately begin firing questions regarding SES, minority populations, ESL, Special Education...anything to overcome their concern that maybe we are on to something. There was no subterfuge in this room. Just a kind of genial curiosity that there was a small public school getting the job done. The consensus? "Good for you. Thanks for your work."
It was a good night. If we were successful, maybe there are a few engaged citizens in Multnomah County who had questions and who have been reminded of the potential of public schools. Maybe they will encourage others that we ought not throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to our obligations toward the next generation.
Many thanks to Debra Mervyn and Suzanne Gallagher for their wonderful hospitality.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Demographics and the School House
I think that schools matter. I believe that leaders can help or hurt schools and that teachers are the primary difference between the best schools and the others. I believe that some students face extremely difficult circumstances, that it matters exactly how schools and teachers respond to those circumstances, and that not all responses are equally beneficial. I believe that the best educational practices are not recent inventions of cognitive scientists, computer technicians or social workers and that educational fads are dangerous in the extreme.
The most dangerous fad in the game today is an unwritten belief, almost a gentleman's agreement, as they used to say. It goes like this:
All teachers, all administrators and all schools are equally effective. The most significant variables impacting student achievement are the characteristics of the student population.
Put more succinctly, Demographics are destiny. Pass it on!
Demographics as destiny is a powerful notion. Just the word, demographics, carries the weight of sophistication, of scientific authority. Who am I to argue with someone who commands words like demographics? And the argument sounds so compassionate, so caring. No blame here, they just can't help themselves. It's demographics, you see. It's the equivalent of a socioeconomic or ethnic disability and it would be unfair to expect these kids (or these teachers, or these administrators) to...
The more pressure that is exerted by the State of Oregon and the Federal Government to produce incremental gains on meaningless tests, the more deeply the demographics argument becomes embedded in the culture of schooling as the only defense against charges of everything from incompetence to cultural insensitivity. Ironically, the State's ham-handed attempts at closing the achievement gap by brute force have probably helped to keep the demographics defense alive indefinitely.
What to do? I'm not sure. But I believe that the more emphasis that the State puts on demographics and on data regarding subgroups, the more districts are going to be encouraged to dig in and seek strength in numbers by pursuing the most recent, most 'promising' new federally funded approaches rather than grappling with their unique local circumstances.
That's what demographics really are. They are local circumstances. Like rain in Cordova, or wind in Chignik Lake, demographics are part of the working conditions around schools. They should be taken into account. But not all kids in poverty are alike. Nor are all migrant students. And whatever these students may share in common within a particular federal category, they have a lot more in common with every other student in the building. They need to be engaged as individuals and as members of their school community. They need to receive their schooling in a network of concerned, expert adults who know them and who care about their success. What they most need isn't new, it isn't glossy, and it doesn't come from a kit or from a new professional development trend. Good teachers. Adults who care about them. Food, shelter, clothing, whatever it takes.
Demographics are not destiny. Categories are not fate. They are, at most, the climate in which we build our houses. There's more than one way to build a house, and each house needs to suit (and perhaps even take positive advantage of) its environment.
If we build where the rain falls or the wind blows, and our roofs leak or the walls collapse, that's not destiny. It's not fate. It might, however, be a sign.
The most dangerous fad in the game today is an unwritten belief, almost a gentleman's agreement, as they used to say. It goes like this:
All teachers, all administrators and all schools are equally effective. The most significant variables impacting student achievement are the characteristics of the student population.
Put more succinctly, Demographics are destiny. Pass it on!
Demographics as destiny is a powerful notion. Just the word, demographics, carries the weight of sophistication, of scientific authority. Who am I to argue with someone who commands words like demographics? And the argument sounds so compassionate, so caring. No blame here, they just can't help themselves. It's demographics, you see. It's the equivalent of a socioeconomic or ethnic disability and it would be unfair to expect these kids (or these teachers, or these administrators) to...
The more pressure that is exerted by the State of Oregon and the Federal Government to produce incremental gains on meaningless tests, the more deeply the demographics argument becomes embedded in the culture of schooling as the only defense against charges of everything from incompetence to cultural insensitivity. Ironically, the State's ham-handed attempts at closing the achievement gap by brute force have probably helped to keep the demographics defense alive indefinitely.
What to do? I'm not sure. But I believe that the more emphasis that the State puts on demographics and on data regarding subgroups, the more districts are going to be encouraged to dig in and seek strength in numbers by pursuing the most recent, most 'promising' new federally funded approaches rather than grappling with their unique local circumstances.
That's what demographics really are. They are local circumstances. Like rain in Cordova, or wind in Chignik Lake, demographics are part of the working conditions around schools. They should be taken into account. But not all kids in poverty are alike. Nor are all migrant students. And whatever these students may share in common within a particular federal category, they have a lot more in common with every other student in the building. They need to be engaged as individuals and as members of their school community. They need to receive their schooling in a network of concerned, expert adults who know them and who care about their success. What they most need isn't new, it isn't glossy, and it doesn't come from a kit or from a new professional development trend. Good teachers. Adults who care about them. Food, shelter, clothing, whatever it takes.
Demographics are not destiny. Categories are not fate. They are, at most, the climate in which we build our houses. There's more than one way to build a house, and each house needs to suit (and perhaps even take positive advantage of) its environment.
If we build where the rain falls or the wind blows, and our roofs leak or the walls collapse, that's not destiny. It's not fate. It might, however, be a sign.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
YOU HAVE A FLAT TIRE! NO, YOUR TIRE! FLAT!!!
I couldn't believe that he didn't feel a tug on the steering wheel that would let him know that his left rear tire was nearly shredded. But there he was, happily driving along, gesturing back at me, evidently tryingto interpret what I was yelling from the passenger side of my Dad's car as we sped down the freeway. I couldn't have been but eleven or twelve years old, and I'm sure I looked like a lunatic waiving my arms, pointing and laughing until tears streamed down my face while trying to form words so that the hapless driver in the other lane would realize his problem.
Hard to say what made me think of that.
I just read an account in the paper of the State of Oregon's new plan for rating schools. It sounds complicated. It includes points for meeting benchmarks on the state assessments. I get that. Then there are points for how much a student improves, unless that student has already met the benchmark in which case his or her improvement doesn't count. Or unless the student is in 10th grade, in which case his or her improvement doesn't count whether or not he or she met the benchmark. With me so far? Now in the lower grades, a student can be counted as meeting the standard even if he doesn't meet the standard, so long as his score is sufficiently improved from the previous year. O.K. Points for improvement. Got it. Now if students are economically disadvantaged (about 25% of Corbett kids, for example) then they count double if they meet the benchmark in the lower grades or if they improve adequately without meeting the benchmarks in the lower grades or if they meet the benchmark at grade 10. Whew! Double! Unless they are both economically disadvantaged and on an IEP. Then they count three times! Oh, and if they fail to meet the benchmark or to make adequate progress, then that one student counts the same as three failing students! Does this mean that passing rates could exceed 100%? Or be less than zero? Stay tuned.
Those of you who follow education in Oregon remember that the argument made for dropping the CIM (during the current ODE administration) was that it was too complicated! (I said at the time that it was really dropped because too few students were earning a CIM, but ODE insisted that it was abandoned for the sake of simplicity.) What we needed was transparency! And this new system? Kafka called. He's suing for copyright infringement and insists that the new rating scheme was lifted word for word out of The Trial. The State's defense? Their plan isn't that well written. Case dismissed!
I can't pretend to be a good enough mathematician to keep up with all of this, but I have a prediction to make. At the end of this magnificent statistical extravaganza, more schools than ever will achieve a satisfactory report card rating, the differences between the highest ratings and the lowest ratings will diminish, and Oregonian headlines will announce, 'Oregon School Ratings Soar!' (they are stuck on the word 'soar' lately). The public will be invited to believe that this latest rearranging of the deck chairs marks significant progress in the Closing of the Achievement Gap, which seems to be the extent of Oregon's vision for education.
So what? What's so bad about giving double and triple points (like coupons at the local grocery store) for various categories of kids? Why not elevate the closing of the Achievement Gap to the status of an educational Holy Grail? For the same reason that the equal protection clause isn't the entirety of The Constitution. Of course equity is a core value. But it is not the only value, and it is not in itself constitutive of an adequate vision of the good life. There simply has to be more.
One of the two most troubling aspects of this costly, convoluted, mathematical maneuvering is the assumption that we have reached an acceptable level of achievement for the non-categorical kids (those who only count half as much) in the state and all that remains is to raise everyone else to their achievement level. It also makes the tacit claim that when two students meet the 10th grade benchmark, one with a score of 260 while still in the 9th grade and one with a score of 236 after three attempts in 10th grade, the achievement gap has been eliminated. A third flaw might be that it reduces academic achievement to nothing more than scores on state tests. In the twelve years that I have been watching state test scores go by, I'm not sure that we have yet administered the same battery of tests for two years in a row without a major revision or a glitch in the system. I therefor don't put much stock in using state assessment results as evidence of much at all, and I don't put any stock in the state's definition of or preoccupation with The Achievement Gap.
So here is my own version of the achievement gap. It's what keeps me up at night:
There is a gap, better yet a chasm, between what Oregon's most able and committed students are capable of creating for themselves and what schools are allowing them to achieve. Fully half of Oregon's high school students should be earning university credit prior to graduation and half of those ought to earn a full year before they cross the stage. We should be aiming for K-13 by age 18 and offering real hope of college completion even in these economically difficult times. And anyone who believes that an aggressive pursuit of this goal will not maximize achievement for all students has simply never experienced life in a real learning community.
Corbett's 9th graders are taking AP Human Geography this year. A quarter to a third of them will pass the AP exam with a score of three or higher, chalking up three credits each should they decide to submit their scores and their applications to Oregon State University (or any Oregon University or college). Last year twenty percent of 10th graders passed AP World History, which is good for six OSU credits. U.S. History? English? Add nine more credits for the two of them. Psychology, Micro Economics, Calculus (ab)? Twelve more credits. And so far no scores above a three are required. A four in Biology? Twelve credits. A four in Chem? Fifteen. We have had numerous students earn their way into their sophomore years upon graduation from Corbett High School. There are footsteps in which to follow. And none of those students had the supports that we have since put in place for students in grades nine and ten. They were trailblazers, first innovators. They proved what can be done.
There is an achievement gap in Oregon. We aspire to close it. And we believe that doing so will maximize the achievements of all of our students. But only if we recognize the 'other' achievement gap. I believe that this doesn't have to be done at the expense of our best and brightest. We should be cultivating and then emulating their success, not putting them on hold in the false hopes that this new Skinner Box will cause everyone else to catch up.
Yes, Oregon, we have a flat tire. Don't you feel the tugging on the wheel?
Hard to say what made me think of that.
I just read an account in the paper of the State of Oregon's new plan for rating schools. It sounds complicated. It includes points for meeting benchmarks on the state assessments. I get that. Then there are points for how much a student improves, unless that student has already met the benchmark in which case his or her improvement doesn't count. Or unless the student is in 10th grade, in which case his or her improvement doesn't count whether or not he or she met the benchmark. With me so far? Now in the lower grades, a student can be counted as meeting the standard even if he doesn't meet the standard, so long as his score is sufficiently improved from the previous year. O.K. Points for improvement. Got it. Now if students are economically disadvantaged (about 25% of Corbett kids, for example) then they count double if they meet the benchmark in the lower grades or if they improve adequately without meeting the benchmarks in the lower grades or if they meet the benchmark at grade 10. Whew! Double! Unless they are both economically disadvantaged and on an IEP. Then they count three times! Oh, and if they fail to meet the benchmark or to make adequate progress, then that one student counts the same as three failing students! Does this mean that passing rates could exceed 100%? Or be less than zero? Stay tuned.
Those of you who follow education in Oregon remember that the argument made for dropping the CIM (during the current ODE administration) was that it was too complicated! (I said at the time that it was really dropped because too few students were earning a CIM, but ODE insisted that it was abandoned for the sake of simplicity.) What we needed was transparency! And this new system? Kafka called. He's suing for copyright infringement and insists that the new rating scheme was lifted word for word out of The Trial. The State's defense? Their plan isn't that well written. Case dismissed!
I can't pretend to be a good enough mathematician to keep up with all of this, but I have a prediction to make. At the end of this magnificent statistical extravaganza, more schools than ever will achieve a satisfactory report card rating, the differences between the highest ratings and the lowest ratings will diminish, and Oregonian headlines will announce, 'Oregon School Ratings Soar!' (they are stuck on the word 'soar' lately). The public will be invited to believe that this latest rearranging of the deck chairs marks significant progress in the Closing of the Achievement Gap, which seems to be the extent of Oregon's vision for education.
So what? What's so bad about giving double and triple points (like coupons at the local grocery store) for various categories of kids? Why not elevate the closing of the Achievement Gap to the status of an educational Holy Grail? For the same reason that the equal protection clause isn't the entirety of The Constitution. Of course equity is a core value. But it is not the only value, and it is not in itself constitutive of an adequate vision of the good life. There simply has to be more.
One of the two most troubling aspects of this costly, convoluted, mathematical maneuvering is the assumption that we have reached an acceptable level of achievement for the non-categorical kids (those who only count half as much) in the state and all that remains is to raise everyone else to their achievement level. It also makes the tacit claim that when two students meet the 10th grade benchmark, one with a score of 260 while still in the 9th grade and one with a score of 236 after three attempts in 10th grade, the achievement gap has been eliminated. A third flaw might be that it reduces academic achievement to nothing more than scores on state tests. In the twelve years that I have been watching state test scores go by, I'm not sure that we have yet administered the same battery of tests for two years in a row without a major revision or a glitch in the system. I therefor don't put much stock in using state assessment results as evidence of much at all, and I don't put any stock in the state's definition of or preoccupation with The Achievement Gap.
So here is my own version of the achievement gap. It's what keeps me up at night:
There is a gap, better yet a chasm, between what Oregon's most able and committed students are capable of creating for themselves and what schools are allowing them to achieve. Fully half of Oregon's high school students should be earning university credit prior to graduation and half of those ought to earn a full year before they cross the stage. We should be aiming for K-13 by age 18 and offering real hope of college completion even in these economically difficult times. And anyone who believes that an aggressive pursuit of this goal will not maximize achievement for all students has simply never experienced life in a real learning community.
Corbett's 9th graders are taking AP Human Geography this year. A quarter to a third of them will pass the AP exam with a score of three or higher, chalking up three credits each should they decide to submit their scores and their applications to Oregon State University (or any Oregon University or college). Last year twenty percent of 10th graders passed AP World History, which is good for six OSU credits. U.S. History? English? Add nine more credits for the two of them. Psychology, Micro Economics, Calculus (ab)? Twelve more credits. And so far no scores above a three are required. A four in Biology? Twelve credits. A four in Chem? Fifteen. We have had numerous students earn their way into their sophomore years upon graduation from Corbett High School. There are footsteps in which to follow. And none of those students had the supports that we have since put in place for students in grades nine and ten. They were trailblazers, first innovators. They proved what can be done.
There is an achievement gap in Oregon. We aspire to close it. And we believe that doing so will maximize the achievements of all of our students. But only if we recognize the 'other' achievement gap. I believe that this doesn't have to be done at the expense of our best and brightest. We should be cultivating and then emulating their success, not putting them on hold in the false hopes that this new Skinner Box will cause everyone else to catch up.
Yes, Oregon, we have a flat tire. Don't you feel the tugging on the wheel?
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Say it with me: R E L A X !
Regarding life in Corbett Charter School:
Corbett Charter School was not founded with an eye toward mediocrity. There is nothing average in our aspirations for children. There is an expectation of quality in our school community, and that expectation is embodied in all of our decisions regarding life at school.
Although we have attempted to articulate our unique approach, we still hear 'the questions' from time to time: 'Where are the spelling tests?' 'When are you teaching cursive?' 'Why don't we see any homework?' 'Where are the math worksheets?' 'What about phonics?' Mind you, by the time these questions are put to teachers, they sometimes have an almost accusatory tone, sort of like "When are you going to wash those dishes?" They have the shape of questions, but somehow they don't sound like requests for information.
How to respond? Perhaps a jumping off point might be to marvel that anyone would drive all the way to Corbett Charter School in search of a classroom that slavishly duplicates the practices employed at 99% of all schools everywhere. This strikes me as an inefficient strategy, since those practices are available every few blocks throughout the metro area. We want to reward your commitment with something more.
At Corbett Charter School we believe that our time with your children is precious, and we realize that it is scarce. What is called 13 years of education is really little more than five years of working together spread across 13 calendar years. Recognizing that time is scarce, we want to put it to the best possible use, all day every day. And that means not spending our school days on activities that could be done at the kitchen table with a workbook from the local book seller. Particularly in the early grades, but also throughout our K-12 program, we want to provide experiences and cultivate understanding in ways that make use of and develop the classroom community. That is, after all, the great advantage to having more than one student in the room at a time!
There will be ample time for individual skill development in the context of doing something really interesting down the road, but that is not our focus in the early going. We believe that the quality of the learning community is critical to the long-term cultivation of intellect and that this community must be carefully established and artfully cultivated by means of our daily interactions and expectations. This is the true 'basic' of primary education.
So Corbett Charter School looks a little different. I am tempted to suggest that it simply has to be so. The primary wing could be considered a sort of mountaineering base camp. Veteran climbers don't charge up the mountain without adequate preparation. They study. They plan. They rehearse. And a successful climb is much more likely if the organizer has the patience and experience to deploy only a well-equipped, well trained team under the watchful eye of an expert guide who has already made the trip.
Corbett has five 9th graders in Advanced Placement Calculus this year. At least that many members of their graduating class will earn a full year of college during their five-and-a-third years spent in Corbett schools. Imagine that. The mountain is real. The rewards for success are tangible and substantial. We know the way up.
We appreciate the privilege of guiding your children.
Corbett Charter School was not founded with an eye toward mediocrity. There is nothing average in our aspirations for children. There is an expectation of quality in our school community, and that expectation is embodied in all of our decisions regarding life at school.
Although we have attempted to articulate our unique approach, we still hear 'the questions' from time to time: 'Where are the spelling tests?' 'When are you teaching cursive?' 'Why don't we see any homework?' 'Where are the math worksheets?' 'What about phonics?' Mind you, by the time these questions are put to teachers, they sometimes have an almost accusatory tone, sort of like "When are you going to wash those dishes?" They have the shape of questions, but somehow they don't sound like requests for information.
How to respond? Perhaps a jumping off point might be to marvel that anyone would drive all the way to Corbett Charter School in search of a classroom that slavishly duplicates the practices employed at 99% of all schools everywhere. This strikes me as an inefficient strategy, since those practices are available every few blocks throughout the metro area. We want to reward your commitment with something more.
At Corbett Charter School we believe that our time with your children is precious, and we realize that it is scarce. What is called 13 years of education is really little more than five years of working together spread across 13 calendar years. Recognizing that time is scarce, we want to put it to the best possible use, all day every day. And that means not spending our school days on activities that could be done at the kitchen table with a workbook from the local book seller. Particularly in the early grades, but also throughout our K-12 program, we want to provide experiences and cultivate understanding in ways that make use of and develop the classroom community. That is, after all, the great advantage to having more than one student in the room at a time!
There will be ample time for individual skill development in the context of doing something really interesting down the road, but that is not our focus in the early going. We believe that the quality of the learning community is critical to the long-term cultivation of intellect and that this community must be carefully established and artfully cultivated by means of our daily interactions and expectations. This is the true 'basic' of primary education.
So Corbett Charter School looks a little different. I am tempted to suggest that it simply has to be so. The primary wing could be considered a sort of mountaineering base camp. Veteran climbers don't charge up the mountain without adequate preparation. They study. They plan. They rehearse. And a successful climb is much more likely if the organizer has the patience and experience to deploy only a well-equipped, well trained team under the watchful eye of an expert guide who has already made the trip.
Corbett has five 9th graders in Advanced Placement Calculus this year. At least that many members of their graduating class will earn a full year of college during their five-and-a-third years spent in Corbett schools. Imagine that. The mountain is real. The rewards for success are tangible and substantial. We know the way up.
We appreciate the privilege of guiding your children.
The School of Education, Scientist
Is there a Science of Education? Can intellectual development be weighed, measured, counted, divided by two? If so, then a science of education might be possible. If not, then there is an emperor called 'School Improvement' that is in dire need of a wardrobe. And if so, then why are school improvement efforts largely ineffective? A gravitational law that failed again and again to produce the expected results would be abandoned or amended. An educational program that fails again and again gets repackaged, funded by the Gates Foundation, and fails again on the front page.
The problem might come down to this: The scientific method works well as an intellectual tool for understanding physical phenomena. But human beings, with a few notable exceptions, are more complex than billiard balls. And when human beings begin interpreting the world and act on their interpretations, then science (which is also a group of people interpreting the world and acting on those interpretations) has met its epistemic match and has no vantage point from which to gain distance or perspective or objectivity with regard to its would-be subject. Good scientists have recognized and wrestled with this problem for decades. They have realized that even with regard to physics the act of the scientists making observations can impact the results of an experiment. If it is problematic with inanimate objects, how much more difficult is the measurement of mental processes?
Even the proponents of 'scientific' approaches to education can't quite bring themselves to form the words. When 'No Child Left Behind' was first out, the federal and Oregon departments of education began using the phrase 'scientific practice'. As reform movements continued to stall, the vocabulary shifted somewhat to 'scientifically based practice.' Subtle equivocation, or just bad grammar? Today the phrase has morphed to become 'evidence based practice'. Evidently even the compliance police couldn't connect the words 'science' and 'education' without experiencing some cognitive dissonance.
I don't believe that a science of education any more possible than is a science of literature or of aesthetics. That is not to say that education is not worthy of study or that people can't become highly expert with regard to teaching and to operating schools. It is only to claim that education will not give up its secrets to the scientific method. Any attempts to force it to do so produce only pseudo-science and snake oil in the form of 'scientifically-based' approaches to literacy, behavior, professional development, assessment, special education, etc. (You can spot the scientifically-based products by their accompanying acronyms. Odds are, if you've heard of it, and it's not a real word, it's an expensive, 'scientifically-based', utterly ineffective, brand-spankin'-new miracle of modern education! Do they work? Keep an eye on high school achievement. That's the 'needle' that I watch, and it's not doing much over the past decade.)
Yep, you got it. I am an unbeliever. The chief unbeliever, perhaps, as most of my Corbett colleagues are of a similar mind. Most days it doesn't matter. We just avoid the nonsense, embracing what we jokingly refer to as 'Program-Free Schooling' (or, PES, though we haven't figured out how to market it!). We simply don't do what the School Improvement Industry insists must be done, and our kids are well served. But the Industry is a distraction, and political forces in the State are constantly tempted to impose statewide 'solutions' based on the testimony of its lobbyists. So it matters, even to those of us who don't buy it, that The School of Education, Scientist, continues to advocate for practices that range from ineffective to dangerous. Keep an eye on the Oregon Legislature. Be suspicious of National Standards. Watch the Chalkboard Project. There are well-intended Oregonians who would like to 'fix' education without regard to how their 'repairs' play out in our tiny corner of the world. We need to be vigilant.
We are off to a great school year. Program free. We'll do our best to keep it that way.
The problem might come down to this: The scientific method works well as an intellectual tool for understanding physical phenomena. But human beings, with a few notable exceptions, are more complex than billiard balls. And when human beings begin interpreting the world and act on their interpretations, then science (which is also a group of people interpreting the world and acting on those interpretations) has met its epistemic match and has no vantage point from which to gain distance or perspective or objectivity with regard to its would-be subject. Good scientists have recognized and wrestled with this problem for decades. They have realized that even with regard to physics the act of the scientists making observations can impact the results of an experiment. If it is problematic with inanimate objects, how much more difficult is the measurement of mental processes?
Even the proponents of 'scientific' approaches to education can't quite bring themselves to form the words. When 'No Child Left Behind' was first out, the federal and Oregon departments of education began using the phrase 'scientific practice'. As reform movements continued to stall, the vocabulary shifted somewhat to 'scientifically based practice.' Subtle equivocation, or just bad grammar? Today the phrase has morphed to become 'evidence based practice'. Evidently even the compliance police couldn't connect the words 'science' and 'education' without experiencing some cognitive dissonance.
I don't believe that a science of education any more possible than is a science of literature or of aesthetics. That is not to say that education is not worthy of study or that people can't become highly expert with regard to teaching and to operating schools. It is only to claim that education will not give up its secrets to the scientific method. Any attempts to force it to do so produce only pseudo-science and snake oil in the form of 'scientifically-based' approaches to literacy, behavior, professional development, assessment, special education, etc. (You can spot the scientifically-based products by their accompanying acronyms. Odds are, if you've heard of it, and it's not a real word, it's an expensive, 'scientifically-based', utterly ineffective, brand-spankin'-new miracle of modern education! Do they work? Keep an eye on high school achievement. That's the 'needle' that I watch, and it's not doing much over the past decade.)
Yep, you got it. I am an unbeliever. The chief unbeliever, perhaps, as most of my Corbett colleagues are of a similar mind. Most days it doesn't matter. We just avoid the nonsense, embracing what we jokingly refer to as 'Program-Free Schooling' (or, PES, though we haven't figured out how to market it!). We simply don't do what the School Improvement Industry insists must be done, and our kids are well served. But the Industry is a distraction, and political forces in the State are constantly tempted to impose statewide 'solutions' based on the testimony of its lobbyists. So it matters, even to those of us who don't buy it, that The School of Education, Scientist, continues to advocate for practices that range from ineffective to dangerous. Keep an eye on the Oregon Legislature. Be suspicious of National Standards. Watch the Chalkboard Project. There are well-intended Oregonians who would like to 'fix' education without regard to how their 'repairs' play out in our tiny corner of the world. We need to be vigilant.
We are off to a great school year. Program free. We'll do our best to keep it that way.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Corbett Schools Lowest in County!
Corbett Schools are often, but not always, highly ranked. Let's take per pupil spending, for example. In 2007-2008, Corbett ranked last in Multnomah County. On the average, students who lived in Multnomah County but outside Corbett enjoy a $10,000 per year education allocation. In Corbett that number was, according to the Open Books project, $8291.00. So we spent at about 83% of the County average. In general, per pupil spending drops as one moves eastward from downtown. Portland and Riverdale lead the way, David Douglas, Reynolds and Parkrose are the second eschelon (all at $9000+ per kid), leaving Centennial, Gresham-Barlow and Corbett (in that order) to bring up the rear. Gresham spent barely $150.00 per kid more than Corbett. Not a lot, but Corbett teachers would have put an extra $3750.00 per classroom to good use.
But that's just Multnomah County, and everyone knows that bigger schools and bigger districts are just more expensive to operate. O.K., everyone doesn't know that, but only because nobody pays attention!
But what about other small schools? What about schools that Corbett competes with in football, basket ball, soccer? Well, it's bad news for the sports fans! Warrenton, Colton, Nestucca Valley, Neah-Kah-Nie, Seaside, Gaston, Knappa: they all outspend Corbett. On the average, these schools spend well over $10,000 per pupil per year. Neah-Kah-Nie, Nestucca and Seaside lead the way, with the lowest of them spending $10,753.00 per pupil. Knappa and Gaston are next at $9000+, and Colton, Warrenton and Corbett, in that order, bring up the rear. Like Gresham, Warrenton spends only about $150 per kid more than Corbett. Just $4000 more per classroom, in the case of Warrenton.
But hey, that's just small, rural schools. Everybody knows that small, rural schools are more expensive to operate.. WAIT A MINUTE!
What just happened? Corbett gets less than its (mostly) larger, urban counterparts because it is small and rural, and it gets less than its small, rural counterparts because it is...small and rural?
It's nobody's fault, really. Oregon has an extremely complex funding formula that has been manipulated at various times to take care of one or another interest group. It is obvious that both the large urban districts and the small, more remote districts have had their day in the legislature. And some districts have passed operating levies and have local taxes that help their situation. Corbett is small, rural, and too close to other schools to qualify as remote. We are stuck in between categories and miss out on the benefits of either. We do get a small high school adjustment, which is extremely helpful. Still, Colton, which is Corbett's demographic twin by all accounts, winds up with$330.00 more per kid. That's over $8000 per classroom. And that's no knock on Colton, whose schools I admire and which deserve all of the support that they can get. I mention them only to illustrate the peculiarity of Corbett's circumstance.
It's nobody's fault, and my attempts to raise the issue with the state have to date fallen on deaf ears. But it's a dilemma, and it leaves Corbett's kids with less support than they deserve.
We're off to a good start this year. While we will likely continue to bring up the rear in financial support, we intend to show well in every measure of school success.
But that's just Multnomah County, and everyone knows that bigger schools and bigger districts are just more expensive to operate. O.K., everyone doesn't know that, but only because nobody pays attention!
But what about other small schools? What about schools that Corbett competes with in football, basket ball, soccer? Well, it's bad news for the sports fans! Warrenton, Colton, Nestucca Valley, Neah-Kah-Nie, Seaside, Gaston, Knappa: they all outspend Corbett. On the average, these schools spend well over $10,000 per pupil per year. Neah-Kah-Nie, Nestucca and Seaside lead the way, with the lowest of them spending $10,753.00 per pupil. Knappa and Gaston are next at $9000+, and Colton, Warrenton and Corbett, in that order, bring up the rear. Like Gresham, Warrenton spends only about $150 per kid more than Corbett. Just $4000 more per classroom, in the case of Warrenton.
But hey, that's just small, rural schools. Everybody knows that small, rural schools are more expensive to operate.. WAIT A MINUTE!
What just happened? Corbett gets less than its (mostly) larger, urban counterparts because it is small and rural, and it gets less than its small, rural counterparts because it is...small and rural?
It's nobody's fault, really. Oregon has an extremely complex funding formula that has been manipulated at various times to take care of one or another interest group. It is obvious that both the large urban districts and the small, more remote districts have had their day in the legislature. And some districts have passed operating levies and have local taxes that help their situation. Corbett is small, rural, and too close to other schools to qualify as remote. We are stuck in between categories and miss out on the benefits of either. We do get a small high school adjustment, which is extremely helpful. Still, Colton, which is Corbett's demographic twin by all accounts, winds up with$330.00 more per kid. That's over $8000 per classroom. And that's no knock on Colton, whose schools I admire and which deserve all of the support that they can get. I mention them only to illustrate the peculiarity of Corbett's circumstance.
It's nobody's fault, and my attempts to raise the issue with the state have to date fallen on deaf ears. But it's a dilemma, and it leaves Corbett's kids with less support than they deserve.
We're off to a good start this year. While we will likely continue to bring up the rear in financial support, we intend to show well in every measure of school success.
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